West Bank funeral highlights Israel’s use of live ammunition to provoke violent resistance

Palestinians from all over the West Bank poured into the village of Aboud yesterday to walk in the funeral procession for Muhammad Asfour. Asfour would have turned 23 today; he was a college student shot at the entrance to his home village of Aboud, protesting against the inhumane Israeli policies of arresting and imprisoning Palestinians from all walks of life. Just last week 60 Palestinian civilians were arrested by Israel, including 12 children.

In the coverage of his death, AP offers this hasbara claim: “The Israeli military says rubber bullets are meant to be ‘non-lethal’ means of dispersing protests.” But it wasn’t a rubber bullet that cracked the skull of Muhammad Asfour, causing brain hemorrhages for two weeks until he died. It was a rubber coated steel bullet.

The use of live ammunition on Palestinian protestors is on the rise. On January 31st, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator James W. Rawley expressed ‘serious concern’ about the increase in civilian deaths in the West Bank from the use of live ammunition, after eight Palestinian civilians, including three minors, were killed by Israeli forces over the previous 2-1/2 months. He said “Individuals found responsible must be held accountable,” but there will be no accountability. There’s never any accountability; instead the deaths keep stacking up.

Israel is targeting Palestinian youth for daring to protest the inhumane policies of administrative detention, daring to protest the incarceration of husbands, fathers, mothers …. and their children. Some taken from houses at night, interrogated and abused, locked away for months or sometimes years.

Residents of Nabi Saleh, instead of protesting the theft of their land, springs and water (weekly protest every Friday), went to the nearby village of Aboud to join the funeral procession of Muhammad Asfour instead.

Popular resistance leader Bassam Tamimi says the Israel government has become “more terrorist now” in an effort to force Palestinians to abandon “this way of resistance,” meaning non violence: “they want to force us in the corner to go to the hard resistance.”

Muhammad Asfour, in solidarity with Palestinians Hunger Strikers, gave his life protesting these inhumane Israeli policies of incarcerations. And as for all the urgent appeals, expressions of “concern” and calls for accountability, and UN accusations of systematic abuse that violates international law: When is someone going to do something? What options do Palestinians have going against an occupation authority backed by the global superpower? Is the world going to stand by for another decade of Israel treating Palestinians as expendable rats in a human laboratory as they steal more and more of Palestinian territory?

The sister of Muhammad Asfour (L) holds a photograph of her brother at his funeral procession Photo by: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org

46 Responses

Hey, who cares? We Americans get to watch Larry David on HBO, juxtaposed to Buck Naked Reality series. Gushing young, naive ignorant hillbilly vaginas and decrepit, manipulative paranoid anal Jews? What could be more entertaining? Now, that’s what makes our American world go around!

It gets to me as well. But we’re a ragtag bunch with non-standard opinions. What does it say about the western world that this dreadful story unfolds to a background of approval, sometimes fulsome praise, or indifference? Obama in Palestine is going to make us squirm, isn’t he?

This is a deliberate tactic that started the second intifada. During the first three weeks of the Second Palestinian Intifada, the Israeli army — according to its own records — fired one million bullets. Because the occupation army and their so called liberal apologists ask where is the Palestinians Gandhi. The need violence to make this hasbara point and the answer is they are either in jail or dead .

I’ve watched Israeli soldiers shoot stone throwers since 1987. And not just stone throwers; “inciters” (people who led chants), even people who flashed the V for victory have been shot. There’s no doubt that these shootings are part of a policy of incitement. And incitement is critical to the occupation. When people respond to the incitement they provide the IOF with a pretext for escalating their violence, and the Big Bonus is that if any Israeli is injured or killed then the Victim State can bemoan the barbarity of the Arabs. Edward Said (and the person quoted above) are clear on this. The greatest weapon against Zionism is denying its enforcers victim status.

Maybe its just me, but this invasion seemed worse than the ones in the past few years. Molotovs, crowds, Friday timing, flash grenades, steel bullets. It felt like I was watching the beginning of an explosion.

It’s not you. I posted this below but it’s clear that ISreal is accelerating the confrontation and the hostilities. This is probably the final phase of the assimilation and they are creating the violence in order to justify the final assault. Also, since most of this happening in the West Bank now and not Gaza, they most likely want to pounce the hell out of them like they do in the other open-air prison.

I don’t think that there’s going to be an explosion in respect of religious sites, not in the short term. I believe that the Jewish State cannot for ever tolerate the situation where the most important monument on its territory is manifestly not Jewish but the time scale is very long. For the foreseeable future there is no alternative. Temple worship and all that it implies, including finding a High Priest, is out of the question for a long time. So the Muslim institutions stay, subject to a bit of nastiness.

@MHughes976 Mostly agree, but as seafoid says, they just might not be able to help themselves. They’re on a trajectory, and to me, it seems to be accelerating.

I also view this latest violent incursion in the Al Aqsa compound as it might be seen by Muslims worldwide. I don’t know if fire in the Al Aqsa compound (i.e. the credible threat of burning it down) by whomever is noteworthy, globally. Will the person that threw that firebomb be privately chastised or lauded? Reckless fool or hero?

I don’t know how a global affront to Muslims affects local Palestinian actions, but if Israel keeps provoking, the reaction may quickly move beyond their “control.” Whether that designed precipitation is their current intent or not, I don’t know. But it has been in the past.

I agree that the use of rubber coated bullets is unconscionable. Any other army in the world would return live fire if rocks were thrown at them like this. As usual, the IDF has to defend israel with one hand tied behind its back. Plus, had this adherent to the religion of peace been shot with a full metal jacketed round, Israel would not have to absorb the exorbinate medical expenses he incurred in the two weeks following the incident. Cruel and incompassionate you say? What type of treatment would injured Israelis receive in gaza, Judea and Samaria?

Any other army in the world would have been recalled to its own borders about 40 years ago. The rest is effect completely due to that abject failure. Conversation starts from there mate, not at “rock throwing.”

ritz, i read an article about an action that took place today, a wedding israel broke up. ma’an news reported israel claimed they were about 100 people throwing rocks at them, and they shot tear gas into the crowd. problem is, people were videoing it. there were no rock throwers, the people were dancing with the groom on the shoulders and israel started firing into the crowd.

another thing, notice how il doesn’t even need evidence or accusation or anything to make the claim this murdered palestinian was throwing rocks. remember bassam from bil’in, he wasn’t throwing rocks, it was on video, they just killed him. shot right at him and killed him.

Annie, I notice in the comments at Open Zion and HuffPo that “rock throwing” is commonly used as first-instance rationale for Israeli killing. It is not generally rebutted as a simple and readily understandable reaction to the/a ongoing violent assimilation/genocide of the Occupation. Not sure why, except that “lefties” (i.e. people that would generally rebut that nonsense) don’t like violence and therefore, imo, mistakenly equate “any” violence (however meager) with “any” other violence (however lethal), without regard for circumstances or degree.

“Rock throwing” seems to be the new, increasingly shrill, yet effective meme by Israel and its supporters. The subtext being Palestinians could just end this if they would just stop stop throwing rocks (i.e. lay down), and as you point out, even if they weren’t throwing any rocks.

“Rock throwing” seems to be the new, increasingly shrill, yet effective meme by Israel and its supporters.

You might want to link to these two you tube videos from B’Tselem the next time the “rock-throwing” meme gets bandied about.

First one is of an IDF soldier shooting a rubber-coated steel bullet at an unarmed Israeli activist in Bilin.

Second one is even more shocking. Its an IDF soldier shooting a bound and blindfolded Palestinian in the leg at close range while his commander holds the victim steady for him.

You might also mention that the Jewish settlers in the West Bank have been known to attack IDF soldiers with rocks and none of them has ever been shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet. (Rubber bullet is an imprecise term, they are really rubber-coated steel bullets.)

And as a response to IL, with his “any other army” hasbara garbage, most armies and police worldwide respond to violent demonstrators with tear gas, water cannons and other non-lethal crowd control methods. rather than shooting someone in the head. Here’s an article from last week about a violent demonstration in Djibouti. Protestors threw Molotov cocktails at police who responded with tear gas. Djibouti is a small, poor, third world country on the horn of Africa, with a majority Islamic population. Their police in this instance were much more civilized than “the most moral army in the whole, wide world”.

The notion that rock throwing is a “new meme” recently hatched by the IDF to justify its conduct is simply laughable and absurd. Palestinian “protesters” have been hurling rocks since well before the 1st uprising in 1987.

Virtually every IDF operation dealing with large crowds of “protesters” is filmed by scores of “journalists” and “human rights workers” hoping and praying to catch some footage that shows the IDF in a negative light. Against that backdrop, all you can show is:

A four year old video of Abu Rahme being shot in the TOE by the IDF. You of course fail to mention that the solider was prosecuted and convicted (unlike the Palestinians who are martyred and celebrated for KILLING jews).link to haaretz.com

and a five year old video of a JEWISH protester being shot in the thigh. Again, compare this to the treatment hamas dishes out to fellow arabs “convicted” of collaborating with Israel.

Seems to me you and yours are the ones spewing “hasbara garbage”.

“The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.”- Alexander Galloway, director of UNRWA in Jordan, 1952

Palestinian “protesters” have been hurling rocks since well before the 1st uprising in 1987.

Of course, ISrealite “soldiers” have been shooting, bombing, attacking and slaughtering Palestinians since well before 1947, the time when the UN and the Western world saw it fit to take their country from them and give it to a bunch of European jews with no ties to the land. In exchange, Palestinians have been hurling rocks back to the world’s dismay because we all know that rocks are weapons of mass destruction and a superior fire power than, say, tanks, bombs, depleted uranium and white phosphorous. Right, ILL1948?

See what a difference it makes to put any narrative into context, ILL1948? If the best you can do is indiscriminately use quotes in order to deligitimize the Palestinians and their struggle, Hasbaraniks have lost the war. BTW, I seem to recall that the Nazis used similar tricks in order to dehumanize jews and to justify their atrocities but don’t let that stop you, eh? Continue acting like a Nazi, I’m sure it will pay off in the end. Or will it?

@IL1948 Yeah, you got me. I mispoke by using “new.” I should have said “newly emphasized,” “all you got left,” and maybe even “vestigial” meme. As Annie pointed out upthread, Israel doesn’t need any justification for shooting and/or killing Palestinians. It just does it. Any gathering of one or more will do.

But in comments sections, viewed by normal people who might think that these sport shootings might be otherwise unwarranted and indefensible, the defense of those shootings has to have something to latch onto. Since Palestinians in the WB are almost completely non-violent, “rock throwing” provides that rationalization. It’s the only thing thing you all have left before you stand naked as you shoot into wedding parties or even weekly protests against Israeli land confiscation.

So, again, here’s the whole context:

1) Israel forcibly/violently confiscates more and more land and resources for no reason whatsoever.

2) Palestinians resist mostly nonviolently, but a few throw rocks at the people confiscating their land and resources.

3) Israel and its supporters routinely skip the first bit and use the seemingly unmotivated Palestinian (though completely normal) reaction to justify these shootings.

Kind of a glaring, and to use your words, “absurd” omission, donchathink?

The other aspect is that IDF spokespersons have a habit of using stock explanations with no fact checking. If the question is about shooting tear gas then it is a response to rock throwing, if it is about bullets, Molotov cocktails, if someone was killed he/she was a terrorist and if he died in custody, heart attack. Nice job, you do not even need to learn English except for few sentences.

The other aspect is that IDF spokespersons have a habit of using stock explanations with no fact checking.

and when they don’t have the goods they just fabricate it out of thin air. more on iof fabrications here, and don’t miss the big photo at the base and the translated ‘messaging’ : link to mondoweiss.net

il 48 aka Afrikaaner/Klansman/DovidDuke –
Care to tell us how many times rioting settlers have even had ‘rubber’ bullets fired in their general direction when they throw stones at the army? We do know such events happen.

Your smugness and indifference is absolutely sickening. You can rest easy, I assume, knowing that you are a factor as to why many people around the world are growing more hostile to Israelis who embrace violent and racist Zionism.

“Any other army in the world would return live fire if rocks were thrown at them like this.”

Almost hilariously untrue. For example, Haredim pelted one of the ministers with stones and the security detail did not open fire. Zionist religious settler invaded an IDF unit in West Bank, pelted soldiers and an officer with rocks and damaged some cars, and again, no fire was opened, and no arrests were attempted. Both Haredim and settlers resort to rock throwing on regular basis.

@ ritzl:
Do you know what the other red flags stand for? The ones with a white circle and black lines in it? At first, I was a little shocked, because from afar they look like Third Reich flags. But when you zoom in, you see that the black lines are two waves.

Survey in the streets of Israel: “Why do Israelis kill Arabs and steal their land?”
Watch the responses. So much denial.

Palestinians have had a long history of tragedy, coupled with a love of their heritage and the denial of both of these by the US and Israel is what holds the Palestinians together.

That is my belief anyway. The human spirit is awesome to behold, at times. I feel quite the same about the Afghan people who have lived with brutal war for 3 decades. No matter how hard the oppressors try, some refuse to be vanquished. The same goes for Haitians & for Africans in so very many countries who still hold hope in their hearts that peace and justice will one day be theirs.

“RIP Muhammad Asfour. People (and more people) do care about what’s happening to you and yours.”

The creeping apartheid revealed by this week’s announcement of a separate bus service for Palestinian workers coming to Israel from the West Bank confirms these trends.

Two polls taken in December last and another published this week express the Palestinian frustration. Support for or expectation of armed resistance grows 20 to 30 points to 50 to 60 per cent in the polls, partly reflecting the last round of rocket exchanges between Gaza and Israel, which Hamas is regarded as having won. Support for its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, grows substantially compared to that for Abbas.

And yet the picture is more complex. Most Palestinians still prefer a negotiated two- state agreement based on a halt to settlements and non- violence. They support the reconciliation efforts between Fatah and Hamas. There would be roughly even support for the two in elections, though Fatah still has the edge.

If anyone understands and feels the plight of the Palestinians that is the Irish having themselves been the subjected to the same degrading and inhuman conditions are the Palestinians are victim of today.

It is obvious to any good observer that ISreal is embarking on the last phase of the assimilation of Palestine. If the Palestinians won’t cause their own demise, then, ISreal will make sure they are provoked and the conditions to justify the final assault are created. Once that is done and Palestine is no more, I can certainly hope that the majority of Palestinians that will populate the illegitimate project known as the State of ISreal will be kinder to the ISrealites than they have been to the Palestinians.

The good news is that there are some changes going on in Israeli policy to make life just a little better for everyone.

First thing is a clear designation that both rock and molotov cocktail throwing are considered deadly force, whether done by grown up Arabs, international “peace activists” or as we have seen increasingly in the last 6 months… children.

Both Israeli civilians and military are being advised to respond with live ammunition fire, preferably to maim rather than kill, because then the wounded person is presumably going to need to be cared for, rather than simply buried, and not in Israeli medical facilities either. Of course a shoot-to-kill response to stone and firebomb throwing is fine too. That’s what’s done in other Arab countries, and if it’s good enough for them, then it should be good enough for these “human rights activists” too.

First thing is a clear designation that both rock and molotov cocktail throwing are considered deadly force…..Both Israeli civilians and military are being advised to respond with live ammunition fire

ah yes, the ‘logical’ justification created to mow down the masses. you may have missed it but we documented this little transition in colonial control that just so happened to take place right around the time israel was caught mapping out ways to provoke and punish palestinians and as it goes about instigating these violent confrontations as a means to usher in a violent third intifada because israel doesn’t do gandhi very well.

December 10: Rightwing Israelis backlash against supposed curbs on soldiers.

The Times of Israel reports that Israeli political officials, responding to another video gone viral, state soldiers “should not be subject to restrictions in their response to demonstrators”, ”soldiers should make maximal use of all weapons at their disposal”and “troops…hands were tied by superiors.”

December 11: The next day on its Facebook page, the rightwing group Im Tirzu posts an alarmist cartoon about soldiers facing “emasculation” from human rights groups and the European Union.

so right after a certain video just happened to go viral , and the times of israel explains:

group of soldiers filmed last week being forced to retreat under a hail of Palestinian rocks say they were told not to use tear gas and other non-lethal means of crowd dispersion, possibly because the incident was being filmed.

The video was released to the Internet over the weekend, leading to much hand wringing in the IDF, which promised to review its procedures.

riiiiighttt! one little incident where allegedly some iof troops run away (which could never have been staged) and all of a sudden the iof needs to review their procedures and lickity split legislators are right there within days calling for live ammunition to be used against ..rock throwers.

color me shocked/NOT. and the poor soldiers are being accused of being emasculated by their Im Tirzu breathen (who could never be accused of collaborating w/hasbara messaging/NOT)

meanwhile lieberman is chiming in w/his slap a soldier and you die lingo the next day, over an incident completely instigated by iof troops invading a pa controlled area, again.

and this is all going on while Times of Israel is reporting ” In Israel, fears of a new Palestinian uprising.”! check the dates of december 6th thru 13th. yeah, we remember. it all began less than a week after palestinians went to the UN, the pogroms against the palestinians began.

>> That’s what’s done in other Arab countries, and if it’s good enough for them, then it should be good enough for these “human rights activists” too.

Yeah, why settle for being better than the worst when, instead, you can wallow around in the muck of immorality and injustice with them?

Another Zio-supremacist digs for the bottom of the morality barrel *and* glosses over the entire matter of the oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist “Jewish State’s” brutal occupation of Palestine.

So Brian, in the interest of “fairness”, do you approve of and urge the “shoot to kill” orders when the assailants are Jewish? Or do you believe Jewish rock-throwers (settlers mostly) should be given a pass while Palestinian ones are not, as per current Israeli policy? And is it simply enough, in your mind, for someone to “allege” stone throwing against a Palestinian to mitigate their deadly action or should any proof be required? And if only their word is enough then should it be enough in the case of a Jewish stone thrower?

Should these people have been killed in December 2011?

In a series of “price-tag” incidents, angry right wing extremists in the Samaria area of the West Bank attacked a military base, two IDF commanders and Palestinian vehicles late Monday night and early Tuesday morning to protest the pending demolition of the unauthorized Ramat Gilad outpost.

On Route 55, the Israeli extremists surrounded an IDF vehicle. At one point, an extremist opened the vehicle’s door and threw a rock at the commander of the Ephraim Brigade, Col. Ran Cahana, according to security sources.

An IDF spokesman said that at that time, they received numerous reports of rock throwing incidents against Palestinians; not all of which were confirmed.

Around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday some 30-50 Israeli extremists, including many teens, broke into the Ephraim brigade headquarters, located down a small road from the Kedumim settlement in Samaria, according to security sources.

Most of the combat soldiers normally stationed there were involved in activities outside the base, Mizrahi said.

The extremists burned tires, spread nails on a road and threw stones and paint bottles at vehicles, the IDF spokesman said.

According to Mizrahi they also punctured the tires of two vehicles. A rock was also thrown at the deputy brigade commander Harpaz Zur.

The rioters, he said, yelled at Zur, whose grandmother is a Holocaust survivor, that he was a “Nazi.”

As Mizrahi spoke with reporters outside the Ephraim brigade he defended the actions of those soldiers on the base, who did not arrest the extremists.

And how about these people? Should they have been met with deadly force, instead of indifference from the IDF? From 2012:

Last Saturday, a B’Tselem video camera captured an incident of settler violence that began with rocks being thrown at Palestinians near the village of Asira al-Qibliya in the outskirts of Nablus, and ended with live shots fired by the settlers and a wounded Palestinian youth.

Anyone who saw the video could easily make out the IDF soldiers standing next to the settlers, doing nothing to stop them. Those watching from the sidelines may have been surprised by the useless stance of the soldiers. But anyone who understands the reality in the Occupied Territories well knows that that this is just another example of the long-entrenched paradigm that constitutes the basis of IDF activity on the ground: We are not here to protect Palestinians. Not when the settlers burn their olive trees or throw rocks at them. And not even when settlers shoot at them.

The most extreme outcome of this paradigm was the massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994. When Baruch Goldstein, a settler from Kiryat Arba, entered the Tomb, there were no cameras to record the incident and no soldiers (or Border Police officers) to stand in opposition. But even if they had been there, it’s reasonable to assume that they wouldn’t have been the ones to stop the firing. The reason for this, as published in the report by the Shamgar Committee charged with investigating the incident, is that the rules of engagement given to Border Police officers serving there at the time forbade them from directing any fire of any kind at a Jewish settler. In testimony given by one of the officers to the Committee, the explicit command was described: “Arms may not be used against any Jewish settler in Hebron, along with any crowd dispersal method, even if said settler is endangering my own life or the life of an Arab near him.” Another commander from a Border Police company in Hebron testified that the rules regarding disturbance of the peace by a Jew were, “to take shelter so as not to be injured, to wait until his weapon jams or the magazine runs out, and to then try to overpower him through other means.” Baruch Goldstein was stopped when his weapon jammed; the result was 29 Palestinians killed and dozens injured.

Mondoweiss in Your Inbox

There are now two ways to get Mondoweiss delivered directly to your inbox! Sign up for a daily digest of every story we publish or a weekly collection of highlights picked by Mondoweiss staff to stay up to date with our independent coverage of events in Israel/Palestine.

Subscription Options:

Weekly Daily Both

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.